After the Summit of the Americas, Raul Castro Offers to Talk to Obama, But Not to Us

The Summit of the Americas ended yesterday and it doesn't appear that an urgent meeting of parliament, or a special plenary session of the Party Central Committee, is being convened to discuss the proposals made by Obama. "A fresh start with Cuba," the American president said in Trinidad and Tobago, but today Fidel Castro's Reflections referred only to Daniel Ortega's long speech. The journalists from the National News haven't taken to the streets to collect people's impressions and my neighbor has been enlisted in Operation Caguairan, in case of a possible invasion from the North.

Given the importance of what's happening, the "accountability meeting" being held in my building today should be devoted to the new relations between Cuba and the United States. But the delegate prefers to talk about the unruly neighbors who throw their trash outside the bins, rather than ask what we think about the end of the dispute. In my son's school some teacher repeats that "Obama is like Bush, but painted black," and the billboards in the street still call for continuing the struggle against imperialism.

I don't know what to think, given the difference between what is said to the outside world and the tiresome sermon we get every day. Even Raul Castro himself seems ready to talk to Obama about things he's never wanted to discuss with us. I can't help asking myself, then, if all this "olive branch" and the willingness to touch on broad themes, is not just words said to the outside world, phrases pronounced far from our ears.